Children's book author and illustrator Maurice Sendak touched many people with his work

Maurice Sendak had a long career as writer and artist of children's literature. His death at the age of 83 is going to touch many people who remember his work fondly from their childhoods.

An online obituary of Sendak said he was strongly influenced by the Disney movie "Fantasia" and decided he wanted to become an artist after seeing it at the age of 12. It is interesting to me how Sendak himself went on to be very influential. I wonder how many professional artists and designers today were inspired by Sendak's work when they were young and that helped start them on their career paths.

Sendak probably never thought in 1963, when his book "Where the Wild Things Are" was published, that it would later be thought of by so many people as his seminal work. After all, that was almost 50 years ago, and he still had many decades of very creative work ahead of him.

Nonetheless, "Where the Wild Things Are" is probably the book that comes first to the mind of most people when they think of Maurice Sendak.

I am writing a story today about Sendak and his place in children's literature and would love to have some comments from readers to include the story. If you would like to participate, please send your comments to joe.gulick@lubbockonline.com or add them to The Avalanche-Journal Facebook page. Thanks.